Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced on Wednesday that the State of Alaska is suing the U.S. Department of the Interior for illegally and unjustifiably extending the decades-long restrictions on nearly 28 million acres of federal land in Alaska. The action by Secretary Deb Haaland blocks state land selections and Alaska Native Vietnam Veteran allotments.
Gov. Dunleavy:
“This is a methodical effort by the Biden administration – more than just bureaucratic foot dragging – to frustrate Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) and the Statehood land entitlement and leave these lands locked up as de facto parks. They are consciously ignoring and going around appropriate processes to hold things in perpetual limbo. It has needed to be challenged for a long time and it needs to be challenged now more than ever due to these new delays – and I am challenging it. The intent of ANILCA matters, these unnecessary withdrawals need to be lifted, and we need to finally move this process forward. This is another federal attempt to deny Alaska the full realization as a State promised under our Statehood Compact, and it should not stand.”
These withdrawals have prevented Alaska from exercising its Statehood right to claim valuable lands or assess the natural resources on these lands, and blocked Alaska Native Vietnam War veterans from selecting land allotments.
Dave Stieren, Communications & Community Outreach Director for the Governor’s Office told KSRM’s Jesse Bjorkman on the Bird’s Eye View Wednesday:
“This isn’t some new thing and so Secretary Haaland and the Biden Administration, okay, the state of Alaska is always going to fight the feds over land issues and I really like your topic before I came on about putting more land in the hands of residents, but what Haaland did is look in the eye of Vietnam Veterans, Alaska Native Vietnam Veterans and said ‘you know what, in a couple of years, we’ll consider giving you your allotment.’ Nobody knows how long anybody has on the world. To look at these in the eye and say ‘we appreciate your service, but we, once again, the federal government, are not going to make good on the promise to American Natives and American Indians by, frankly a secretary that is Native American, is a bad look all around.”
Under a 1971 federal law, the Secretary was allowed to issue temporary land withdrawals to restrict the use of federal land in Alaska to allow the Department of the Interior time to determine how federal lands should be issued in the state. These withdrawals also effectively prevented the transfer of temporarily withdrawn lands to the State under the Alaska Statehood Act. Many of these 1970s-era orders have never been lifted even though the reasons for the withdrawals have been satisfied for decades, according to the Governor’s office. Under 16 orders, nearly 28 million acres of land have sat under outdated restrictions while the federal government proposing that the withdrawals be lifted but not doing so.
In 2006, the Bureau of Land Management reported to Congress that the temporary withdrawals could be lifted on over nearly all of those areas without affecting public interest. Following that report, multi-year reviews recommended that the withdrawals be lifted. In January of this year, then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt issued orders to lift 16 land withdrawals from about 28 million acres, but once Secretary Haaland took office, she repealed those actions for at least two years.
The state’s lawsuit asks the federal district court in Alaska to prevent the Department of the Interior from continuing to delay the January 2021 orders and to direct the Department to lift the 16 obsolete withdrawals immediately.
